Distributed Area Coverage Control with Imprecise Robot Localization

TL;DR

This paper presents a distributed control method for multi-robot area coverage that accounts for imprecise localization, using Guaranteed Voronoi partitions and hyperbolic arcs to ensure coverage and collision avoidance.

Contribution

It introduces a novel distributed control law based on Guaranteed Voronoi partitions for robots with uncertain localization, enhancing coverage reliability.

Findings

Effective coverage with imprecise localization demonstrated

Collision avoidance inherent in the control law

Distributed approach scalable to multiple robots

Abstract

This article examines the problem of area coverage for a network of mobile robots with imprecise agent localization. Each robot has uniform radial sensing ability, governed by first order kinodynamics. The convex-space is partitioned based on the Guaranteed Voronoi (GV) principle and each robot's area of responsibility corresponds to its GV-cell, bounded by hyperbolic arcs. The proposed control law is distributed, demands the positioning information about its GV-Delaunay neighbors and has an inherent collision avoidance property.